A Spy at Bolvangar
by Bug Catcher Nakata
Summary: Aria is the child of Mrs Coulter and Lord Boreal, who has grown up with her father. Sent to her mother's shortly after Lyra's disappearance, Mrs Coulter sends her North on a dubious spying mission to Bolvangar to clear her path to Boreal. Aria (pretending to be 'Anna') crosses paths with Lyra and might just influence her journey more than Lyra knows.
1. Chapter 1

**This story was written as a request, the prompt was: Mrs. Coulter has another daughter named Aria, who is a year younger than Lyra. After Mrs. Coulter loses Lyra she takes Aria, but Aria already knows Mrs. Coulter is her mother.**

Gracious Wings, the Harpy, looked up at an old ghost shuffling off the dock. The ghost slowly turned back towards the boatman who had carried it across the lake, and gave him a small wave and a smile. He nodded in return and leant on his oars, pulling his boat back out into the water. The ghost looked up at the cliffs and brushed its hair out of its eyes. The harpy could see this was an oft-repeated gesture. As the ghost continued walking towards the cliffs, Gracious Wings saw that the ghost was a woman, and very old. For the ghost's part, she felt the aches and pains in her body fade away—she could walk unaided for the first time in years. But she still felt old and tired, for while she had left behind the particular disfunctions in her body, her mind was still weary. She realised that even without the arthritis in her knees, she still moved slowly, that the tiredness she had told her grandchildren she felt in her bones had actually been in a place even deeper than that. But no matter—she had had a good life, and seen many things. As this thought was drifting across her mind, she looked up and noticed the harpy perched on a rock and gazing at her. It was like nothing she had ever seen—the head and torso of a woman, but with huge black wings and lean clawed feet. Her face was old, and there was something hard in it, but not necessarily unkind. It was the face of something who had seen and heard so much more than the ghost could even imagine. The creature must be old, she realised.

"Hello," said the ghost.

"Do you have a story for me?" the creature replied.

"A story?"

"That's right. That's how it's been, since the Living Ones came. You tell me a story, and I'll show you the way out of the Land of the Dead."

Aria was quiet for a moment, thinking about what she was hearing. She imagined that as a young girl, she would have been startled and confused. It was funny how, as she got older, she had become more and more used to not being in control of situations. The world changed so quickly, and she found it was easiest to just accept what was happening first, and then think about reacting to it afterwards. So she was in the land of the dead, and here was a creature who would guide her out of it if she told her, or it, a story. At times like this, she would have turned to Kyrillion, her Daemon, but he wasn't at her side anymore. The feeling of walking as a ghost was strange, she couldn't feel the weight of her body, of course, but she missed the weight of Kyrillion in his settled form as a Red Fox even more.

"What's your name?" Aria asked. "And what kind of creature are you?"

"My name is Gracious Wings, and I am a Harpy."

"And you want me to tell you a story?"

"Yes. You tell us a story in exchange for our help."

"I see. And what happens when you guide me out of this place?"

"I show you the way out. You decide when to leave. Once you do, your spirit will drift apart and rejoin the world."

Aria thought for a few moments. "I've seen a lot of things in my life, and a lot of changes, but I think I want to tell a story from a very long time ago, when I was just a child. Is that all right?"

"The only requirement is that the story is true."

"Oh it is, to the best of my memory. I'm going to tell you about the time I met Lyra Silvertongue."

Evidently the name meant something to the creature, because her expression changed. Before, she had been studying the ghost the way a schoolmaster might gaze at a student, but now she looked enthusiastic, leaning forward eagerly to hear what the ghost had to say.

"Lyra Silvertongue!" the Harpy skwawked, and the ghost heard the sound of wingbeats. She looked up and saw other creatures, more women with the bodies of birds, or birds with the heads of women. They flew down and stood in a circle around her, jostling for position. She heard them talking excitedly to each other, but couldn't make out any particular words other than 'Lyra' and 'Silvertongue'.

Aria waited as the Harpies' curiosity got the better of their excitement, and they settled down. When the Harpies had fallen silent, she gazed around at a circle of eager faces. Putting the strangeness of the creatures out of her mind, she collected her thoughts and began the story, from a time when she was very young, tall for her age and with bright red hair.

And this is the story that she told.

Aria's father's name was Carlo Boreal. He was a wealthy and powerful man, who was away for a large part of Aria's life growing up. Aria lived in his mansion and was raised by two of the maids, Billie and Stella, during the times her father was away. One afternoon, the sound of the horse and carriage in the drive brought Aria running downstairs despite Billie's protestations.

"Father! Carlo!" she shouted as she reached the ground floor. Aria opened the front door just as the footman, a tall and serious man who Aria had never liked, bowed and stepped back from the carriage to allow her father to exit.

"Hello my little princess," said Carlo as his daughter ran towards him.

"What did you get me?"

Carlo laughed and hugged his daughter. "Honey you have to at least pretend that you're happy to see me before I give you your presents."

"Ok, I'm sorry. I'm very happy to see you."

"I know you are. And I've got a surprise for you. It's about your mother Marisa."

"Mrs Coulter! Is she going to come over? I so want to meet her!"

"Even better my dear, you're going to live with her."

And so Carlo Boreal explained to his daughter that he was expecting to go on a longer trip than usual, and that he thought she was old enough now to meet her mother for the first time. Carlo didn't mention that in fact it was Mrs Coulter's idea that Aria come and stay with her for a while and be her 'personal assistant.'

Mrs Coulter showed Aria into the apartment. Aria looked with approval at the wide South-facing windows, though she couldn't help but notice that they weren't as big as her father's.

"Do you like it?" asked Mrs Coulter.

"Oh yes," said Aria, "It's very beautiful. I am especially fond of the Curtains, are they Moncrieff?"

Aria was talking exactly like the governess, who visited weekly to instruct her in what her father described as "womanly matters". Carlo refused to discuss domestic matters with her, and she was glad to have the opportunity to practise, and of course to show off her knowledge in front of her mother.

To her dismay, rather than looking impressed, Mrs Coulter looked slightly irritated. "I don't believe so," she said, "I think they're Harper. Can I tell you something, Aria?" She leant towards her daughter. "Actually, nevermind. You're your father's daughter after all."

Mrs Coulter smiled sweetly, but Aria could feel Kyrillion's discomfort under the gaze of her Daemon, a monkey with beautiful long golden fur.

Over the following days and weeks, Mrs Coulter took Aria everywhere she went. Aria was used to meeting rich and powerful people at her father's table, where she was permitted to eat alongside politicians, scholars and high profile church members provided that her manners were perfect and she didn't speak unless spoken to. Mrs Coulter, on the other hand, encouraged her to talk to the people that she was introduced to. Always, while Aria was talking to the Minister of State or the Dean of the College of Bishops(who was always slightly tense), she had one eye on Mrs Coulter, trying to impress her with her knowledge or ambition, but always her mother would respond with politeness while her Daemon glared at Kyrillion with barely disguised scorn. Aria's father had told her that Mrs Coulter had never wanted a child and would consider Aria as more of a personal assistant, but this hadn't actually prepared her for the cold politeness with which her mother treated her. Mrs Coulter made no reference at all to Aria being her daughter, either to Aria or to anybody else.

Aria missed her father during this time. She thought about the little tricks he would play on her. One of his favourites was to glance behind her, over her shoulder, while he was talking to her. She never failed to turn around, even though she knew there was nothing there. If she held his eye, he would keep glancing behind her, until she'd either turn or break into laughter and try to tackle him. `It's a great trick,' he'd told her. `It might get you out of a tight spot one of these days. Gives you a half-second over someone. Oldest trick in the book, but still good.'

Aria could see that Mrs Coulter wasn't the type to play tricks. She spent a lot of her time meeting with various people, often regarding the search for a girl called Lyra. It was clear to Aria that Mrs Coulter's mind was primarily occupied with finding this girl. Aria wasn't sure who she was, but it seemed that she had been Mrs Coulter's previous assistant. What Aria knew for sure was that whatever she did wasn't as good as Lyra, even if she didn't know why.

As the weather began to turn, Mrs Coulter hosted a dinner party. Aria recognised some of the guests from her father's house, but many others were strangers. They were the usual crowd of theologians and politicians, adults she found predictable and boring. To make matters worse, many of them had met Lyra at Mrs Coulter's previous party and knew that she had gone missing. For reasons which Aria didn't understand, these people wanted to talk to her about Lyra, asking how much Mrs Coulter missed Lyra, if Aria had ever met Lyra, Lyra Lyra Lyra. Aria was sick to death of hearing about Lyra! Once when she was in her mother's room while she was away, she had seen a photogram of Lyra, sitting in a pretty little frame on Mrs Coulter's dressing table. Aria stared at Lyra's face for a long time, until she had every feature comitted to memory, and imagined her photo in a similar frame, maybe even a prettier one, placed next to it on the same dresser.

While one of the old men from the church, a Father Halloran, was telling her about the Magisterium and how powerful Mrs Coulter was becoming (Aria burned with shame whenever he said `Mrs Coulter' instead of `your mother'), Mrs Coulter was having a much more private conversation in another part of the house.

"So you've found yourself another assistant already," said a man with his back to Mrs Coulter, facing the window. His Daemon, a small bird of prey, difficult to see exactly what type in the dark-ish room, perched on his shoulder.

"Don't talk like that with me," said Mrs Coulter.

"And Carlo Boreal's daughter, no less."

"He's far too attached to her. It will do him good to put some distance between them."

"Do him good, or do you?" said Erik, but Mrs Coulter ignored him and continued speaking.

"She represents a serious drain on his time and ability to concentrate. His boundless ambitions are becoming much more domestic. A person who aspires to greatness shouldn't be confined in a house beyond the age of 12, it stunts their growth."

"So what do you plan to do with her?"

Mrs Coulter glared at Erik, who sensed this and turned around. "Well? You \are\ being uncharacteristically upfront right now."

"Nothing of the sort. I'm only making statements that you already know or have guessed."

"I haven't guessed your next move."

"I know. But really, it doesn't take much imagination. The pieces are all in place."

"She doesn't even know she's your daughter, does she," said Erik, turning back towards the window.

"Why don't we talk about the affairs of adults rather than children. Tell me about Jotham Santelia?"

Erik smiled. "Oh, that's a good story, you're going to find it rather amusing."

"No, Aria, that's incorrect. You're only thinking of the things that could go right, and failing to account for all the things that might go wrong. For example, what if you can't make it to the College by exactly 7:45? That would cause your entire plan to fall apart." Mrs Coulter had been questioning Aria about the day-to-day subterfuge involved in manipulating the various levers of power in the Church. Over the past several days, she had put some time into testing the abilities of Aria, trying to determine if she could be put to good use as an acolyte. Mrs Coulter had suspected that it would be easier to just get rid of the girl, but had given her a chance. Unsurprisingly, given the general disregard that Marisa had for children—Lyra sometimes excepted—Aria had entirely failed to live up to what Marisa had wanted. Moreover, the girl clearly loved her father and couldn't be trusted to have the strength to act against him. Of course, there was no guarantee that Lyra would either, but Lyra's father was an altogether different man than Carlo Boreal, no matter that they might walk the same corridors of power. Decision made, she abruptly changed tack and smiled sweetly to her daughter.

"But that's okay, I think you do understand a lot of things and you've learned a lot. Remember that learning is a process of constantly making mistakes. If you're not making mistakes learning, then you already knew what you were doing, you're wasting your time and you should be out in the world."

Aria smiled in spite of herself at the compliment. She had been so worried that in spite of Mrs Coulter's smiles and assurances she had been failing, letting her mother down in some way, and she was glad to hear that this wasn't the case, that her mother thought she was making good progress. Kyrillion was in the form of a gecko, running up and down Aria's clothing, but he saw the Golden Monkey looking at him predatorally and changed to a large fox.

"I wonder," Mrs Coulter continued, "if you feel up to doing a special task for me. It's a task that only a child can do, and only a trustworthy and competent child."

Aria felt Kyrillion's fur stand up slightly more rigidly than it had before, but she was too excited to care. Luckily it seemed that Mrs Coulter hadn't noticed.

"Of course," she said. "I mean, if you think I'd be capable of it." She could only half believe that she was saying such things—agreeing to do something without knowing what it was. She was acting like a much younger child than she was. What would Lyra do— she interrupted this thought. Who cares what Lyra would do? Aria wasn't Lyra, and she was glad of it. Lyra had run away, or gotten lost, and good riddance. Now she was here to help her mother, and prove that she was capable. She also hoped that if she did a good job, Mrs Coulter would feel able to claim her publically as her daughter. She felt this hope in her secret heart, and she would never have said it to anyone, not even Kyrillion, not even thought it explicitly. But the hope was there nonetheless, burning like a covered candle.

"There's a place in the North. You know the North?"

Aria shivered, in spite of the warm room. Surely Mrs Coulter wouldn't want her to go to the North?

"There's a place there, a Research Institute. There are a lot of scientists there, and some children. I want you to be there as my Special Envoy."

"Special Envoy?"

"That's right. I'm going to go there in one month's time, and you see, it's hard to trust that people are telling you the truth. So the reports of the scientists are important, but I need somebody I can really trust to be there for me. You'll need to stay there for a month, and then when I arrive you can give me a full report."

Aria sat silently, digesting this information. Kyrillion was thinking about how cold it would be, and how far from help they would be, and how little they knew about where they would be going. But Mrs Coulter's advice to Aria that she should spend more time considering things that could go wrong hadn't quite sunk in yet, and her apprehensiveness quickly flowed into excitement. She had so many questions—

"You must have a lot of questions," said Mrs Coulter. "But we can go over that in the coming days. The important thing for us now is that you'll need to fit in, you'll need a costume."

"You mean like a disguise?"

"Not quite—you need a new personality. You see Aria most of the people at the research facility aren't the sons or daughters of powerful people like your father. They don't dress or speak like you do. We have a lot of work to do Aria, but I think we can do it."

And so began Aria's crash course in the habits of the London underclass. Mrs Coulter had found her a companion, who Aria found entirely loathsome but whose company she endured for the sake of performing her mission for Mrs Coulter. Young people adopt the habits of the people around them even when they try not to, and Aria found (to her surprise and dismay) that speaking like an urchin came naturally to her, and soon she found herself telling Mrs Coulter that her friend, "she en't bad." Mrs Coulter had laughed, and said that she was a fine actor and would make an excellent spy. The praise had made Aria feel dizzy, but also given her the bravery to ask a question.

"Mrs Coulter, umm, what should I do if something were to go wrong, while I'm at the station?"

"My dear, that's a very good question." She looked about the room, then made eye contact with the monkey, who scampered into Mrs Coulter's bedroom. "I'm going to give you a very powerful device, called an, umm, `Theologic Entangler.' There are only six in the whole world, and I'm giving one to you. It's a very precious tool, so I trust you with it. You see, a very skilled operator can use them to send messages instantly across great distances. Unfortunately, I'm not yet a skilled operator." She paused as the golden monkey handed her two ceramic disks. She gave one of them to Aria and continued. "But what I do know, is that if you break one of these Entanglers, the other one will break in exactly the same way. So all you need to do is to snap it in half, and I will see that you're in trouble and send help immediately."

Aria and her daemon were enchanted by the disc, amazed that something that looked so ordinary could be so powerful and also that Mrs Coulter had entrusted it into their care.

"Can it be put back together once it's broken?" Aria asked.

"Yes, but only at great inconvenience, so be sure not to use it unless you really have to. Only break the plate if you are in great danger or something truly extraordinary happens that I must know immediately. I shall be very upset if you break it over something trivial."

"I understand," said Aria, and she did. It would take something extraordinary for her to break the plate.

Finally the date of Aria's departure for the North arrived. Two men she didn't know came to Mrs Coulter's apartment to collect her, and as she was saying goodbye to her mother she received two further instructions.

"By the way, Aria," said Mrs Coulter sweetly. "You mustn't mention your father—the people at the facility don't like him very much at all, and you will be in great danger if they ever find out that you're his daughter. Secondly, you will fit in better if you pretend to be afraid of me. Good luck. Remember that I'll be there for you in exactly twenty-eight days."

Aria had no time to ask any further questions, because one of the men had stepped forward and taken her by the arm. It was all she could do to wave goodbye as she was led speechlessly into the waiting carriage. 


	2. Chapter 2

Aria paused, and looked around at the crowd gathered around her. "I suppose you don't often get people being the villain of their own stories," she said to the harpies. "Here I am being sent to spy for an evil woman."

"It's not usual," came a reply.

"It's more unusual that they _know_ they're the villains," came another.

"And yet you're telling the truth," said a third.

"And you seem very wise," said Gracious Wings.

"It was a very long time ago," said Aria with a sigh. "But don't worry, it doesn't end badly for your friend Lyra."

Aria paused and collected her thoughts, and continued on with her story.

Aria looked out the window of the zeppelin she had been taken to, as it approached the Facility. For hours, she'd seen nothing but white, punctuated by rocky outcrops. Inside the zeppelin was warm, but she had no illusions about how cold it would be outside. At least, she felt that way—having never experienced real cold, she wasn't really capable of imagining it. She thought she was hallucinating when she first saw the Facility—coated in snow, it looked like an eerie flat mesa emitting a cold, yellow glow even in the daytime. Only the frantic rushing about of the crew members convinced her that what she was seeing was real.

"Settle down," she told Kyrillion, who was restlessly changing form, from cat to bird to lizard to fox.

"That place," he said. "It's no good that she's sent us here."

"It just means she trusts us."

"I hope you're right."

Before Aria could reply, the sound of the loudspeaker rang out throughout the ship.

 _Prepare for docking. All passengers return to their dormitories. Crew commence your landing duties. Estimated 9 minutes until docking._

Aria and Kyrillion looked at each other, and turned back down the corridor towards their room.

***************

After the zeppelin was secured, Aria was seperated from the other people who'd flown over in the first-class births. They were mostly researchers and younger people at the beginning of their careers in politics and the Church. She had changed into her urchin outfit and been ushered into the 2nd class area (there were only two classes). Here, most of the passengers were children, whom she hadn't come across throughout her journey.

"Who are you then," one of them said to her when she walked into one of the dormitories. "And where you been hiding?"

Aria looked around the room. It contained six bunk beds, and she could see the twelve girls who slept there standing around the room. Some had small bags, but most seemed were empty-handed. Aria supposed that there must be a cargo hold somewhere else on the ship. "I'm Ar—Anna. I \dots I dunno. I've been upstairs."

"What's a girl like you doin' travelling upstairs with the ladies and gentlemen?"

Aria didn't know what to say to this. Unlike Lyra, she wasn't a liar by nature, and while she enjoyed playing her role as an urchin, she was more like an actor who'd learned her lines than somebody who was telling a falsehood. Luckily for her, at that moment somebody else Aria hadn't seen, but who seemed to be a guard of some sort, opened the door and ordered everybody off the ship.

"We've arrived at our destination," he said. "Please line up in single file and follow me, silently."

One of the girls poked her tongue out at the guard once he had turned his back, but they did line up, and nobody spoke. They were brash and resourceful children on their home ground, the streets of London or Oxford or one of countless towns and cities throughout Brytain. But here, they were confused, and frightened, and being taken to strange places by taciturn adults they'd never met. Many of them missed their families, and some still missed Mrs Coulter.

Aria—now Anna—fell into line and followed the other children out of their room. As they twisted and turned down the various walkways under the ship, it began to get colder and colder, and Aria wished she'd taken her warm clothes out of her suitcase and also where her suitcase was. But the cold of the lower parts of the ship was nothing to what she felt when she stepped out of the airship. As soon as she was outdoors, she felt the wave of cold hit her. Her breath caught in her throat as the wind blew through her bones, every part of her was cold. `Even the back of my eyes feels cold,' she thought to herself. Freezing though she was, she continued following the line of children forward, what else could she do? She saw another man, dressed in warmer clothes than she, approach them. He looked at the children, dressed in their woefully inadequate clothing, and then at the guard.

"What are you doing? What are they wearing? They'll die out here in those clothes. They might have hypothermia already. This is extremely inconvenient. What's your name?"

"Smith, sir."

"Unit?"

"Echo twelve."

"Well Smith, best of luck in life. I suspect this is the last time we'll meet because you'll soon be out of work. Children"—he raised his voice—"follow me, quickly. We'll get you out of this cold."

It was only a short walk from the ship to the Facility, but Aria's hands and feet were numb by the time they reached the door. The fear that the children were feeling was exacerbated by the shivering and the freezing wind and snow, but the cold also had the effect of removing any apprehension they might have felt entering the facility itself. Their need to warm up turned the facility at once into a sanctuary rather than a prison, a sentiment some of them would express when they left. They were greeted by a nurse, who smiled emptily, told them not to worry about the cold anymore, and led them to a room with mittens and warm boots, which they changed into, and then to another with outfits they were to wear, and then to a huge kitchen, with the longest dining tables Aria had ever seen, the smallest of them at least twice as long as her father's largest. They were all instructed to sit down together at the table and wait for their meal. The girls sat close together because they were mostly not yet warmed up, and even the ones who were still nursed the memories of the terrifying, disabling cold.

After a few moments, food was brought out to them. It was terrible—some kind of stew with overcooked potatoes. Nothing at all like the food she'd been eating with Mrs Coulter, or before that with her father. She ate some, but left most on her plate. She introduced herself to the girl sitting next to her, a slightly plump girl named Bella. Bella was sitting with her friend Martha, and soon the three of them were talking about their pasts. At least, Bella and Martha were—Aria just said that she didn't want to talk about it. The other girls were eager to talk about themselves and so didn't press the matter. While they were speaking a bell rang, and soon the hall was full of childern, perhaps 80 or 100, all jostling each other and talking and playing.

"There's so many of them," said Aria.

"You mean of _us_ ," said Bella, with a serious look on her face.

"I suppose so."

Some of the other children paid attention to the newcomers, but it was clear that their arrival didn't represent anything particularly out of the ordinary. Aria was told that children often arrived in groups, and there'd been ten boys come with them who Aria hadn't noticed because she had been so cold when she arrived. She also got the sense that there was something the others were leaving out about the facility, perhaps that they didn't want to speak about in the presence of the staff. If she could find out what that was, it might turn out to be useful information for Mrs Coulter. Aria smiled in anticipation—she was becoming more and more used to her urchin self. She made a mental note to spend some time tonight carefully crafting a plausible backstory for herself, so that she could share it with the other children if one of them were to ask her again.

After dinner, she was shown to her dormitory. She wasn't put with all the other girls from the zeppelin, but she did end up in the same room as Martha and Bella. She didn't have to wait long to find out what the other children had been keeping from her in the dining room—the very next day, a girl called Lisa from their dorm, who was a little older than Aria and whose daemon had settled in the form of a small bird, was taken away by one of the nurses and simply never came back. This prompted the other girls in the dormitory to let Aria in on what happened: in other words, to take turns stating their wild guesses on what happened to the children who were taken away. Aria had expected herself to be terrified, but the calmness with which the others discussed the issue rubbed off on her. She looked at Lisa's bed, now empty, and began to mentally compose her report to Mrs Coulter. After lights out, she reached into her bag and took out the ceramic plate (whose name she had already forgotten) that Mrs Coulter had given to her. The disappearance of a single child, especially given that this seemed to be quite routine, didn't seem to her to be enough of a reason to break such a precious item, so she put it away and fell asleep.

******************

It didn't take Aria long to fit into the routines of the Facility, even though she was from a different world to all of the other children. The longer she was there, she found that it got easier and easier to play the urchin, and soon she was speaking and acting like she'd been raised on the streets of London. On the other hand, as she became closer to the other children, she talked more about herself. The result was that the other children saw her as being less like them, the more Aria felt more like them. But this wasn't a real barrier to her getting along with the other children, and indeed she only realised the irony of this much later in life.

She did slip occasionally, such as the time she told some of the other children the date Mrs Coulter had said she would next be visiting the facility. Apparently such visits weren't unheard of, and even though Aria couldn't provide any special reason why she should know this information (after all, Mrs Coulter had lied to almost all of the other children about one thing or another) the other girls believed her and it spread throughout the station.

******************

Two days before Mrs Coulter was due to arrive, something changed to snap her out of her routine. After dinner, there was a rumour that a new girl had been brought into the facility, alone. Aria didn't think much of it, until the girl was brought in, asleep, to occupy Lisa's old bed. Even though she was asleep, Aria recognised her instantly—it was Lyra. There was no doubt about it. Aria was looking at the girl who Mrs Coulter had been obsessed with finding while she was in London, sleeping soundly—probably drugged—on the small bed in front of her. Aria immediately thought about the plate Mrs Coulter had given her. She was due to arrive in two days, but what if something happened to Lyra in the meantime? Aria would never be forgiven. She was standing over Lyra's bed with Bella and Martha, and she bent down and shook Lyra's shoulders to wake her up. They asked her where she'd come from, if there were others with her, and Aria (introducing herself as Annie, of course) told her a little about the Research Station. Even though Annie had only been there for one month, because of her commitment to the task assigned to her by Mrs Coulter she had taken special care to find out all about the facility from the other children—from the day-to-day goings-on to the more dramatic events in its history, and she found herself speaking to Lyra like she was an expert. After Lyra and her daemon went back to sleep, she went to the bathroom to talk to Kyrillion alone.

"What did you make of that? She introduced herself as `Lizzie Brooks'. But I'm sure she's Lyra!" Aria said to her Daemon.

"You're right. She looks exactly the same."

"She could be a twin?"

"We'd know if Lyra had a twin sister. Mrs Coulter would have mentioned it, surely."

"Probably."

"The question is, why is she lying about her name?"

"We're lying about ours."

"Yeah. Do you think she was sent here by Mrs Coulter as well?"

"No." Kyrillion didn't elaborate, but he and Aria were feeling the same thing, a creeping sense of doubt about the real reason they'd been sent up here. But now here was Lyra as well...

"I think we should break the plate," said Aria.

Kyrillion, in his fox-form, let out a small fox-sigh. "I agree. We don't really understand what's going on, but I think it's best to let Mrs Coulter know Lyra is here. It's exactly the kind of `extraordinary event' that is the reason we have the plate in the first place."

Aria nodded, and went back into the bedroom. She retrieved the plate from underneath her pillow, and snuck outside into the corridor. There was no door between the dorm and the bathroom, and she didn't want the other girls to wake and ask her about it. The trade-off was that she had to be quick in the corridor—it was after lights-out, after all. She looked left and right, and then tried to break the plate in her hands. It wouldn't budge. It was like trying to tear apart a dinner plate. Aria looked at the hard stone floor beneath her feet, and then back at the plate.

"Here goes," she said, raising the plate above her head. She brought it down against the stone, hoping for it to break in half. To her dismay, it shattered into one big piece and dozens of small pieces. Kyrillion let out a whimper, but soon collected himself and the two of them set to collecting all of the pieces, since even the tiniest one could prevent the reconstruction of the plate.

"It looks exactly like an ordinary saucer," whispered Kyrillion, and they both stopped gathering the pieces momentarily, staring at the pieces of broken china on the ground.

"Let's worry about that later," said Aria, and Kyrillion nodded. It was no trouble to pick up the pieces now, and they would need to consider what was going on at a calmer moment.

As they were gathering the last of the shards, they heard footsteps coming around the corner. Aria stood up quickly and Kyrillion jumped onto her shoulder, transforming into a mouse as he did so. They hardly had time to take a step before a nurse came into view.

"What are you doing here? I heard something smash..." She saw the pieces of ceramic in Aria's hand. "What's this? Oh no, you've broken this saucer. Oh well, give it to me and I'll throw it away."

Aria just looked at her, silently shaking her head.

"No," she managed eventually. "No I can't."

"Don't be silly," said the nurse, as Aria started backing away. What could she do? She could run, but where to? She'd be caught eventually. But that wouldn't matter—as long as she could hide the plate, nothing too bad would happen. The only thing she had to avoid was having the nurse throw away the plate. If she could only get a second's head start she could get away, and stash the remains of the plate for later retrieval, possibly in the gym under the matting, which was only a couple of corridors away...

"Well, hand it over," said the nurse. Aria said nothing in reply, but glanced over the nurse's shoulder, with a slightly surprised look on her face. As of us would, the poor nurse glanced back as well, and that was all the time Aria needed to bolt in the other direction. She thought of her father and was about to laugh out loud, but then Kyrillion shouted "Look out!" but she didn't look up quick enough to see the scientist walking up right behind her. She collided with him, surprising him and sending them both sprawling, and the plate went everywhere. He stood up before her and grabbed her arm.

"What on earth are you doing?" he said.

"I need that plate! It's a theologic entangler," she said desperately, hoping the researcher would know what she meant.

Instead, he just rolled his eyes. "Whatever it is, it's just trash now. Nurse, clean up this corridor. Now you, child, are going back to your dormitory."

He dragged her back into the bedroom, then left, closing the door behind him. Aria heard the `click' of the electronic lock, and started to silently cry. Kyrillion was back in his fox form, licking her face.

"It's ok," he whispered. If it's as valuable as Mrs Coulter says, they'll be able to find it in the trash, with some kind of scanner or something. We'll explain that the nurse took it away from us."

Aria just shook her head.

*********************************

Aria was in the gymnasium playing with the other children when the fire alarm went off. The teachers explained that it was a drill, and that they were to calmly go to where the warm clothes were stored, and leave the station. Once they were outside they milled about, feeling cold and bored but enjoying the disorganisation of the adults. There seemed to be nobody in charge, but at least the adults were somewhat in control of the situation. Then out of nowhere, a boy standing near her was hit with a snowball, and it was as if the children had been blindfolded and suddenly they could see, they realised they were in the snow and that snow was fun, and in a moment there was snow flying everywhere and the adults looked even more confused and overwhelmed. Aria thought she saw two or three of the children slip away, but she couldn't be sure—snow was flying everywhere and besides, they were surrounded by mist. After some time, the adults managed to settle the children down and were busy checking them off against some list they had, when Mrs Coulter arrived. Aria looked to Lyra, knowing that they shared a connection to this woman. She was shocked by what she saw: Lyra's face was contorted in fear and hatred, and her daemon had turned into some kind of cat, hissing and snarling. Aria could only see Lyra's face for a moment, before she hid herself in the hood of her furs and blended into the crowd of children as they where shepherded back inside.

The immediate aftermath of Mrs Coulter's arrival was shocking and deeply disturbing to Aria. She had heard the children talking about her, and seen the disappearances of Lisa and then later Bridget McGinn, but she had felt deep down that her mother would be coming to put right these irregularities, to solve these problems. She had assumed that Lyra had been kidnapped or lost, but now she thought it was more likely that Lyra had _escaped_ from Mrs Coulter. But then why was her photo so carefully placed in the frame on Mrs Coulter's dresser? It didn't make any sense. But standing in the canteen with the other children, she could see the fear that Mrs Coulter's arrival had instilled in all of them, without exception. There was no ambiguity there—they were terrified of her, and mostly they hated her. A majority of the children had been personally tricked and lied to by her, and they all shared a special hatred for her Daemon. Aria turned red with shame thinking of how she had broken the plate to summon her here—she had betrayed Lyra before she even knew her! It was true her scheduled arrival was only one day later, but even so. The extra day might make all the difference to Lyra. Aria also knew that Mrs Coulter wasn't going to put a stop to the disappearance of the children. She probably knew about it, in fact, the disappearance of the children was probably related to the primary purpose of the entire facility, whatever that was.

She didn't have much time to brood on this, because soon Lyra herself approached her while she was standing with Martha and Bella. The fear on Lyra's face had gone, and been replaced with grim determination. She asked them if they could keep a secret.

"Yeah!" said Bella and Martha, eager to hear what Lyra had to say. Aria doubted very much whether Bella could keep any secret from anybody at any time, but she was hesitating because she felt like she was being asked to switch sides. She still hadn't spoken to Mrs Coulter, what would she say when she saw her? Maybe it would be best if she didn't know any secrets, so she wouldn't have to try to keep them from her mother... but despite these thoughts, she couldn't tear herself away from Lyra's, and she found herself leaning in eager to hear what she had to say.

"There's a plan to escape," Lyra said quietly.

Aria was amazed—Lyra had been here for 24 hours, and already was planning an escape? No, it must have been planned before this. But then why was she here? Had they needed somebody on the inside? After all, Mrs Coulter had wanted Aria to be `on the inside'. Everything was happening too quickly for Aria to connect the dots, but what she was sure of was that she was on Lyra's side now. She half listened as Lyra told them what they had to do, and something about a signal.

"What signal?" she asked.

"The fire bell, this afternoon," Lyrea replied, and then warned them one final time not to tell any of the adults, and especially not Mrs Coulter. Aria twitched at the mention of her mother's name. What she wanted most was to speak to Lyra about it, find out what her own relationship with Mrs Coulter was, but there was no time—Lyra was already asking more questions about Mrs Coulter and the other adults. Aria kept waiting for an opportunity to talk to Lyra in private, but while Lyra stayed around her, so did Bella and Martha. They spent the rest of the day stewing in a mixture of hope, fear, excitement and anxiety, watching the staff hurrying around and talking anxiously as well. It seemed like everybody knew that something was going to happen—Aria only hoped that the adults weren't tipped off about the escape plan, whatever it was. She thought they were possibly anxious about Mrs Coulter's arrival and eager to pretend to her that the fire drill and gone well, but she couldn't be certain.

After dinner, the four girls found themselves together in the dorm. Aria could see that Lyra was bursting to tell them something—maybe the escape plan. But instead, Lyra showed them a loose panel into the ceiling and said she was planning to spy on the adults. Aria immediately volunteered to go with her—she had to make up somehow for calling Mrs Coulter—but Lyra wouldn't have a bar of it. Instead, she just asked Aria and her friends to cover the evidence of her absense from the room. Aria had argued with her, but the disagreement had been settled by their daemons and Aria was forced to stay behind. As soon as they stuffed Lyra's bed with spare clothing, Lyra clambered up into the ceiling and pulled the panel back into place behind her. As soon as she did so, Annie started stuffing her own bed.

"What are you doing?" whispered Bella.

"I'm going to go up after her and keep watch. I'll stay just above this room, so that if something happens to her up there we'll be able to do something about it."

"She said to stay here..." said Martha.

"And I will—I'll just be somewhere where I can see what's happening."

Bella and Martha reluctantly agreed to stuff Aria's bed in the same way that Lyra's had been. Aria waited until she Lyra would have gone far enough away that she wouldn't hear the panel being moved (the conference room was quite far away, after all), and then stood on the bed and climbed up after her with Kyrillion.

Up in the ceiling, Aria could immediately see how Lyra had travelled through the roof. There were metal gutters that traced the walls of the building, and she had zigzagged along them in the direction of the conference room. The gutters weren't high enough to block Aria's line of sight, but it was fairly dark up there, with only second-hand light coming up from occupied rooms. Lyra was still moving, however, so Aria and Kyrillion (in his owl form) could see her dark shadow making steady progress along the roof. When Lyra finally stopped, Aria realised she had the perfect vantage point, because she knew where Lyra was and would be able to see if she moved, but if Lyra were to look back there was no way she would be able to make out the still figure of Aria in the gloom. Aria sat and patiently watched Lyra, thinking about her father and about Mrs Coulter, who she didn't want to think of as her mother anymore.

She was shaken out of her daydreaming by a bang of something metal, and then from where Lyra was suddenly there were bright beams of light—somebody must have moved a panel and let the light of the room up into the roof. Then there was movement, struggle, and then she saw Lyra either falling or being dragged down out of the ceiling with a shriek.

Aria's heart was beating rapidly. Should she follow and see if she could figure out what had happened? No—the conference room was far away, and it would be slow going to crawl all the way along the gutters, it had taken Lyra quite some time in the first place. And even if she got there, what could she do? She was just a child.

Kyrillion changed to a mouse and whispered in her ear. "There's one person who could help Lyra right now."

Aria knew that he was right—even after betraying Lyra once, she would have to do so again. She moved the panel and climbed down back into the bedroom.

"What happened?" said Martha, seeing Aria's face turned to white.

"They caught her. I have to go and tell Mrs Coulter."

"What? Mrs Coulter? But she's the reason we're—"

"There's no time to explain," said Aria as she leapt off the bed and ran towards the door, which thankfully was not locked. "Just be ready for the signal!"

Aria left the dorm and ran down the corridors. She didn't know for certain where Mrs Coulter was, but there was a section of the facility where she was told a powerful man from the church had been housed during his visit, and she hoped the same might be true for Mrs Coulter.

When she came to the guest quarters, she came to a closed door and recognised the smell of Mrs Coulter's perfume right away. She tried the door, and finding it locked, began knocking.

"Mrs Coulter! Mrs Coulter! It's Aria, it's something extremely important!"

The door opened, and Mrs Coulter stood in the doorway, looking haughtily at her daughter. Aria had to physically stop herself from cowering, but she stood up straight.

"I called you here," she said.

"Aria! It's such a delight to see you," said Mrs Coulter, but the golden monkey was looking at Kyrillion with disinterest and contempt. "Why don't you come in."

"There's no time. I broke the plate, you would know by now, and it was because Lyra is here."

"Lyra? Don't be silly, she—"

"She's here, and the scientists have just captured her. They're taking her, they're going to," Aria took a guess, based on what she'd heard about Tony Makarios. "They're about to cut her."

At this, Mrs Coulter sprang into action. "They wouldn't dare," she said, standing up and pushing past Aria into the corridor, reaching down a hand for the golden monkey who grabbed it and swung up onto her shoulder.

Aria hurried to keep up with her. "The nurse took away the broken plate, it's in the trash," she said breathlessly.

"Took away the what?"

"The theologic, umm, the thing you gave me to call you?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," said Mrs Coulter, still walking extremely quickly through the corridors.

Aria started to speak, but then stopped herself and fell back. She saw Mrs Coulter stop before a door, utter something under her breath, and all the tension that had been in her body vanished and when she opened the door just a second later, she was calm, collected and graceful.

"What is going on in here," Aria heard her say, but she didn't hear what happened next because she knew that Lyra was in that room, and she had delivered Lyra to her enemy, and she didn't know if she had done the right thing. There was nothing more that she could do now, so she turned and ran back to her dorm.

********************

The ghost of Aria looked around at the Harpies who surrounded her, listening intently. "And then the fire alarm went off, so I realised that Lyra must have escaped somehow, and she led us all out into the snow and to the gyptian sleds. So that's the story of the time that I betrayed Lyra Silvertongue, and then accidentally saved her from Intercision. Of course, I know now that the `theologic entangler' was nothing but a plan old ceramic plate, but I really felt that I had summoned Mrs Coulter to that place."

"And what happened to Lyra Silvertongue after that?" asked Gracious Wings.

"You mean you haven't seen her down here?"

"Not for many years—she came here alive, and then left alive. But her ghost hasn't been back."  
"Oh! You know, it makes me happy to hear that she's still somewhere in the world."

"Did you see her again after that?" said Gracious Wings.

"Many times," said Aria. "But I'll let her tell her own story."


End file.
